TRUE CRIME

Arrest Made In Car Wash Murder

Dallas police last month arrested Jeryll Dewayne Smalley, 39, for the May murder of Christopher Carraway, 36, who was left for dead in a neighborhood parking lot.

Smalley is the brother of the victim’s girlfriend (unnamed in documents); she ostensibly cooperated with investigators, helping them bring murder charges against her brother.

Just past 11 p.m. May 5, first responders found an unconscious Carraway in the darkest reaches of a car wash at 9601 Plano Road in Lake Highlands. He was “badly injured,” Dallas Police information officers stated at the time, and he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at Presbyterian Hospital.

When detectives arrested Smalley in Sulpher Springs June 2, he admitted to killing his sister’s boyfriend, though we do not know the specific motive.

According to the arrest warrant, homicide detectives concluded that on May 5 Smalley stabbed Carraway and dumped the dying man in the rear lot of the Gator Car Wash. The confessed killer might have known pretty quickly that he was in trouble. Both security cameras and employees of the adjacent Sonic Drive-In observed Smalley’s black Dodge Durango, lights off, pull up alongside a dumpster past the last car wash bay. A man exited the vehicle, walked to the passenger side, then returned to the driver side to reposition the vehicle, blocking the view of Sonic workers and cameras, the report notes. After one employee moved his own vehicle the security camera field of vision improved, revealing that after lingering several minutes, the Dodge driver pulled away; at this point a motionless body was visible alongside the dumpster. The Dodge driver moved slowly and stopped, as if he noticed the employees inside Sonic watching him (and “as if he is watching them”), according to the warrant. He idled for a moment or two, then, exactly one minute after exiting the lot, he called 911 to report a body.

When a Dallas Police Department homicide detective spoke to Smalley on the phone at 1:27 a.m., Smalley could not offer a good reason for leaving the crime scene prior to the detective’s arrival. Smalley also claimed he did not know the victim — a lie. Police on May 8 interviewed Smalley’s sister who was Carraway’s girlfriend. In fact, she told police, her brother, Smalley, and her boyfriend, Carraway, left her residence together the night of Carraway’s death; she let them drive her vehicle, the Dodge Durango.

She did not see her car, boyfriend or brother again.

The Dodge later was found in Arkansas with fake plates and has been impounded as evidence. Smalley is in Lew Sterrett Jail on a $250,000 bond. Christopher Carraway’s family and friends are still mourning his death.

Smalley has a history of felony charges: one for possession of a controlled substance, two for possession with intent to distribute and one charge of evading arrest.

MIGHT THIS IDEALISTIC OASIS TRANSFORM NORTHERN LAKE HIGHLANDS?

There is a woodsy 9-acres tucked between two office parks near the I-635 service road and Forest Lane. For years the overgrown brush and patches of grass have provided, essentially, a clandestine camp for homeless people, as well as the dumping of unwanted junk. But a much brighter future is in store for the land now that the Dallas Plan Commission has unanimously approved a remarkably unique plan for a new Woonerf-style neighborhood called Urban Commons. (It’s a Dutch term — roughly translated as “living streets” and pronounced VONE-erf meaning a kind of pedestrian-friendly, low-speed street.)

The development — conceived by Diane Cheatham, the woman responsible for nationally renowned Urban Reserve neighborhood where she also lives — could prove transformative for our area, with its “low maintenance, low velocity, low impact, low stress, low pressure, low fumes, high design” living for a relatively affordable investment (that is, compared to Urban Reserve whose abodes approach the million dollar mark in some cases).

Constructed amid the thicket of trees, a thin creek trickling through, and just a skip north of the picturesque Richland College campus, Urban Commons will include 75-80 single-family homes ranging from 600 to 2,800 square feet.

It takes a certain level of confidence to promise “minimal modern homes that exist in harmony with our environment” (as the website introduction does) at a location across the street from a low-budget, extended stay motel and one of the region’s busiest highways.

But that is essentially what Cheatham accomplished almost a decade ago with Urban Reserve. Where most people, if they noticed anything at all, saw a densely overgrown patch of uninhabitable earth separating Lake Highlands from Central Expressway, she saw 14 acres of opportunity to build a vanguard village of modern and sustainable homes.

Since the Dallas City Council approved the plan in January, the grounds have been cleared of overgrowth and trash. The recent commission approval allows for commencement of upward construction, notes publicist Rita Cox, adding that a groundbreaking ceremony will take place in the next couple of months.